Piazza San Domenico
Gothic square framed by floating jurists' tombs on marble columns and two baroque votive pillars.
Location
About this audio guide
Piazza San Domenico in Bologna centers on the floating tomb of Rolandino de' Passeggeri, a notary who woke one spring morning in 1274 to church bells signaling the expulsion of the Lambertazzi, one of the city's oldest noble families, on an order he had signed himself. The guide follows how a man with no noble blood or army rose through Bologna's guild of notaries to lead a faction, write the city's standard legal handbook, and put his signature on the Liber Paradisus, a law freeing thousands of serfs a few years earlier. It leaves open the argument that still surrounds that law and the pen that wrote both it and the expulsion.
This audio guide was created using AI.